Asylum 1 2007

Contents

Asylum 2007

Summary of events

Asylum was the first Supernatural convention to be held with star guests from the TV show (fan-organised conventions had been organized since 2006). Asylum was held in Coventry, UK, at the Leofric hotel, on the 11-13 May 2007.

Jensen Ackles brought with him his friend Jason Manns, a song-writer and singer, who performed on the Saturday evening, signed autographs and made his CD available for sale as well. Jason Mann's performance was very appreciated by the fans. Jensen came up on stage with Jason to duet on the song Crazy Love during the evening.

Jensen Ackles appeared in two solo panels, on the Saturday and Sunday. Both times he was very gracious, open and took the time to answer each question at length. Asylum was his first ever convention.

Alona Tal, Nicky Aycox and Brooke Nevin shared a panel on the Saturday as well as doing individual panels. Alona was funny, vivacious and eloquent.

There were autographs and photo session with each guest, organized by ticket number. Plus there were also Coffee Lounge events with each guest and only up to 20 attendees, whose tickets were extracted in a raffle. There was also an auction on the Sunday for various signed photos and other items. The money from the auction went to the Christopher Reeve charity.

The Convention was promoted as a joint Supernatural/Smallville Convention, although most of the foucs was on Supernatural. Guests from Smallville included Allison Mack, Justin Hartley, Alan Richson. Other genre TV show actors (Mark Lutz, Jenny Mollen, Douglas Arthurs) who had been attending the Coventry Sci Fi Fair held at the same time as Asylum, also did autograph signings, photo sessions and talks.

There were over 700 convention attendees. There were some chaos and delays on the Friday and Saturday morning regarding registration and what was happening where this was down to lack of signs and being able to see them, a very tight registration area, but after a while this was sorted out and things ran fairly smoothly but the organizers admitted that although the main hall could handle the fans sitting down, the hotel itself was just not big enough for that many fans in one confined area moving around, subsequently the event was moved to the massive Hilton Metropole from 2008.

Noteworthy happenings

Rugbytackling: An over enthusiastic fan launched herself at Jensen Ackles while he was waiting for the lift to arrive, and was very quickly removed by Jensen's security guards. She was consequently escorted off the premises and was asked not to return. However, Jensen took it in his stride and was only a little late for his panel, and was reportedly upset that the fan had been told not to return for security reasons (but understood why).

Inopportune Questions: Jensen was asked about fanfiction and about gay subtext between the brothers. He said that it was 'ridiculous' (referring to the gay subtext and Wincest). He also admitted that Kim Manners had alerted he & Jared to the existence of Wincest. ""Some of those fan fictions have some very, very crazy ideas. And sometimes very...disturbing ideas. One of my favorites is, uh, Wincest...I-I only hope that my grandmother never reads those. Jared and I had a good laugh about that one. It was only brought to our attention because Kim Manners posted it. So um...that's that."

Danneel Harris accompanied Jensen on the trip and to the convention, but was only recognised by a few die-hard One Tree Hill fans.

Musician Jason Manns, who is also a friend of Jensen's, performed at one of the 'disco' evenings (Saturday night). At the end of the set, Jensen joined Jason on stage and they sang together briefly.

The Bee Story: Jensen related an extended version about the filming of that scene in Bugs